I don't feel 38 years old most days.
Or rather, I don't feel like it's been 18 years since I did something for the last time. And that something has gripped me and won't let go.
I am not fearful, depressed, angry, anxious, regretful or even upset about this lapse. Just stunned. And very, very sad.
It has been 18 years since I stood at my granfather's grave (in Germany) and said my little prayers. I was there with my grandmother who died three years later. I have never laid eyes on her headstone. I did not say good-bye. There was no chance. There was no money. There wasn't any time, either. And I cannot reconcile how deeply I am feeling that grief right now.
Just a few minutes ago I was joking around with our company's design manager about his trip to Germany and how he needed to go see my cousins and my aunts... And I asked him to go to my granfathers grave... and in the typing of that sentence my heart seemed to break open and the tears are pouring forth from the fissure. And I just can't tell why. I don't know why.
Maybe some of us are more tied to our ancestors than others. Maybe my sense of loss is for my parents and my heritage and my failure to really know my own generation.
I just know I have to go soon. I don't know how else to stop the tears from taking over altogether.